


A Rose By Any Other Name Would Die As Fast

by NarcissusPhinea



Category: Queen (Band)
Genre: Anorexia, Eating Disorder Recovery, Eating Disorders, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Oh wait that's all this is, Stream of Consciousness, Unhealthy Behavior, Vomiting, We're getting there folks, Whump, Why Did I Write This?, probably triggering, what else
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2019-07-13 06:28:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16012193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NarcissusPhinea/pseuds/NarcissusPhinea
Summary: Roger just wanted to be a little smaller.Triggers listed inside.





	1. A Talent

**Author's Note:**

> Triggers: Vomiting in graphic detail including stuff on what it is like to taste food on the way back up, details of binging and starving, thoughts about fat and other body things, exercising and stuff. A little implied internalized homophobia, but it's only one line. Uh. 
> 
> I didn't include anything about calorie counting though.
> 
> Might be a little unrealistic, I don't know why I wrote this or where I'm going with it, if anywhere.
> 
> Honestly you shouldn't probably read this. It's just me venting about my bad thoughts with characters I don't even know too well.
> 
> Take care of yourself.

Roger always was the prettiest one in their group. Not necessarily the hottest, most certainly not the most talented, but the prettiest.  
  
He gleamed in pride, bubbles echoing out of his mouth when anyone said so. It made him feel things he couldn't put a name to, made him feel small and precious like a little diamond, shining in the sun.  
  
Sometimes he wanted the compliments to cut to the point.  
Was it so much to ask for someone to call him the smallest, the thinnest, the most perfect?  
  
(Yes, because none of those things are true, a little doll told him. Look at Brian--thin and lithe, beautiful without having to try. He kicked and embraced the doll at the same time).  
  
It wasn't that he thought he was obese. He wasn't blind, after all. It was more like he was small, just not small enough.  
  
He could fix that, with a little time and dedication.  
  
At first, Roger didn't eat for three days and it was easy if he drank warm water to stop his stomach from hurting. No one asked anything when he just said he wasn't hungry or felt a little ill. He felt somewhat dizzy, but they didn't have any shows those days so he didn't faint or anything.  
  
Then he woke up with a huge appetite and devastatingly forgot he wasn't supposed to want food.  
  
He ate more than he would in two days if he was eating normally. He felt stuffed after, bloated like a couch they put too much fluff into. It didn't feel good but it was satisfying in the way food always is.  
  
With it came shame at the loss of control, however. It was stupid that he couldn't master this little meaningless organ that rented his abdomen.  
  
(He admitted that it was stupid to go cold turkey on eating, too. He wanted to be smaller, not dead-er. He promised to be smarter). Roger couldn't stop though, not entirely. For three days he did well and then he fucked up. It was things like this that made him wider than Brian. He knew he could look pretty if he could just find the motivation to peel the fat off himself in one big layer, revealing someone better.  
  
They played a show the day after his binge and there was nothing he could do but eat a normal amount.  
  
Somehow Roger felt a little bit of fat pressing against his drumsticks. It didn't make sense but while he played the songs as well as ever, his fingers felt thicker and squishier. He wanted to stretch them out like taffy till they were slim and pretty like his face.  
He couldn't really do that, sadly. He could, however, eat a little less from then on--as long as he didn't forget again.  
  
He decided to make a plan in order to prevent things like that. Roger pulled out a pen and a booklet and began scratching his thoughts into their temporary forever-home.  
  
He could cut out breakfast easily, replace it with coffee. Roger liked coffee. He should take out the sugar and cream though, it seemed like the sort of thing that would be fattening. And... He decided to have light dinners, nothing too big. That should be enough, right?  
  
Maybe some exercise too, that would burn fat so it would do double the work, surely. Maybe just a few runs wherever they were at the moment. He could do at least 3 runs each week. Then, before he knew it, he would have all those things he didn't like about his body gone. He'd get all the compliments he wanted and if Brian ever hugged him he would feel him small and vulnerable under him.

  
(Was he a little gay? That sounded a little gay. Better make those lunches smaller too...)  
  
...  
  
A month later. In a lot of ways, it was easy. He didn't have to care about his rumbling stomach and he just pretended to cough so no one else heard it. He quickly found out that not eating anything before a show was a Bad Idea, so he vowed to always eat at least something small so he didn't entirely fuck up his playing with the jitters or the dizziness or whatever. It started as just a few runs and skipping breakfast and not allowing himself to have junk food, but he soon found himself going above and beyond. If no one asked him, he didn't have to have lunch or even dinner. He usually ended up having 1.5 meals or so per day. When he looked in the mirror, he loved that he could see his ribs and his hipbones peeking out from under the blanket, shy enough to be able to scare away, not that he would. Roger looked delicate.  
  
One month later. In a lot of ways, it was hard. If Freddie or Brian or John asked him to eat with them, he usually did because he didn't want questions raised. "Because I want to be dainty and pretty like a girl" sounded like a fucking stupid answer. He had bad days too, days where he ate way too much and he didn't know what to do about it. He tried to do as much exercise as possible on those days, but when you're touring, it's not exactly easy. Jumping jacks, crunches, and push-ups could all be done in the bathroom and in the bedroom easily enough, and when he could, he ran outside. It didn't really help, Roger felt stuffed after that, and also horribly out of control. A little diet shouldn't be so hard. He wasn't even fat in the first place! When he looked in the mirror, he hated what he saw more than when he started (not that he wanted to go back). He hated the little belly poking out and he hated his neck, soft and pliant. He wished it were razor-sharp and breakable as porcelain. Suddenly he could see his thighs as balloons with no effort and he wanted to shear the extra off like sheep's wool.  
  
At least this way he knew how to fix it. Eat a little less.  
  
...  
  
Two months in.  
He went to a restaurant alone. He usually went with his friends, but today he was tired and didn't want to have to eat in front of them. He went in and got a coffee--plain, like usual--and sat down. He wasn't really in the mood for people.  
  
Someone sat down next to him. He wondered if he was jinxed--a binge day yesterday and then this?  
  
"Can I help you?" he asked.  
  
The girl was terribly thin on second notice, sort of reminding Roger of a scarecrow. He was not necessarily proud of the envy that instantly flashed deep in his empty stomach. She was a brunette and looked twenty-something. Her clothes, small though they were, still left room for her to move.  
  
"You look like you could use some advice." Roger was pretty sure he just looked like he didn't want to be bothered.  
  
"About what?" He was a little annoyed at her presumptuousness. Did the size of her brain match her waist size?  
  
"About the reason you're drinking a plain black coffee and looking unsatisfied with life."  
  
"I'm just not hungry right now."  
  
"Look, just a tip. Those days you eat too much and hate yourself for it, just go to the bathroom and throw it up. It's easier than you think." She left, and he noticed her mouth smelled like nothing but mouthwash at 4 pm.  
  
He wouldn't sink so low. It was just a diet, and to actually make himself vomit was too far. Besides, the thought made him a little squeamish.  
  
...  
  
Two months plus one and a half weeks. He had a bad binge and he could feel the food being absorbed, fluffing up like quinoa inside him, weighing him down like lead. He didn't want it there.  
  
Roger knew what to do, whether he wanted to or not. He went to the bathroom and pushed his hair out of the way. He knelt in front of the toilet, then paused. How did he start?  
  
Gag reflex. He didn't really have anything but his fingers.  
  
He put one finger up (his middle one, like a "fuck you" to losing control) and put it back there. It tasted sour. He just... pushed. Instant reaction, and he felt his stomach stir His eyes and his mouth watered but nothing came up.  
  
Again.  
  
Nothing, he was still full.  
  
On the fourth time, he didn't pull his finger out, just kept it there. He couldn't see through the tears, but he felt his stomach eject the half-digested food. There was more though, he knew there was. Again.  
  
Bread came up, dry and doughy and scratchy and choking. It made his throat feel like fire. It plopped into the toilet with a light splash that landed on his face. He gagged again.  
  
The pasta was soft but the sauce burned on his raw throat.  
  
Cereal came up and that part was fine, but so did the milk and it was fucking disgusting. It was like his cavernous belly had rotted the milk then spat it back out into his mouth.  
  
That was everything.  
  
Roger got up, washed his mouth out, cleaned his hand and face, then flushed. The only proof was his red eyes like he'd just cried. He exited the bathroom.  
  
...  
  
Brian said he looked like a skeleton. When Roger thanked him, he just told him that wasn't what he meant. Roger probably knew that.


	2. A Drink

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roger and his friends go to the bar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey hi hello! Here is a kind of small update for you. I've been writing more on my phone which really helps me because the judging keyboard of my computer is a big barrier to overcome. My phone is small and unassuming and makes everything I write look big, though it's probably not helping me on the spelling error front. Still, I hope you enjoy. 
> 
> Trigger warnings: another purge, generally bad thoughts from the main character, binge-type event, nothing that's worse than the first chapter, I think.

Things were different than they used to be, he thought.  
  
Roger's friends were busy with their lives. Roger's life was kind of consumed by thinking about food and his figure.  
  
It should have bothered him, not running his own life anymore. It was his meals that dictated his time schedule outside of band time, his runs that told him whether he could afford to hang out or not. It should have meant more. But it didn't, and if anything it felt good. Anger had always flushed him in just the right way, and his own body was a constant source of unshakeable anger.  
  
It shouldn't feel so good, so addicting to "suffer for one's art" but on the days when he could just cry from hunger pangs... that was when he felt most beautiful.  
  
Brian was just about the only person noticing his behavior, and even then he hardly did. Roger was almost disappointed (he knew it was selfish to want everyone to point and say "look! he's deadly, stinging thin!" but he liked to imagine it sometimes) but he also knew they'd probably make him stop if they every knew exactly what he did.  
  
Brian watched him when they ate together, and Roger couldn't help but wink. See what I'm doing? his brain projected.  
  
Brian didn't say anything.  
  
Time fell away. He passed out once but only for about a second and it wasn't that big of a deal. Those stage lights always knew how to make him feel thick in their yellow cast.  
  
Then he went out for coffee after a show, and Brian asked if he could follow. Roger said yes, not knowing what to expect from their outing.  
  
They sat in the little square booth awaiting their drinks (nothing but drinks, and Roger was thankful). Roger wasn't sure why, but for some reason the table and seats reminded him of a prison cell. They were more colorful, but they held the air of entrapment despite the plasticky comfort of the cushions.  
  
Roger drummed his nails across the hard table, beginning to pick when he felt his right ring finger's nail break a little.  
  
"What did you wanna talk about, Bri?" he asked.  
  
"I dunno, just- you've been acting kind of strange lately. You don't seem to sleep much, you're kind of... snappy, and we don't see you much off of band-time. Freddie and John are worried too. You're like a stranger, Rodge."  
  
"No, I'm not!" he protested, even though it was probably true. Was it bad to say he hadn't noticed?  
  
Brian sighed. "Yeah, you are. Can we see you around more often? Not just for business? Please."  
  
Roger looked into Brian's eyes like people in movies sometimes did before coming to make a decision. He didn't really see anything there that would help him, but he supposed part of him must be missing having regular and often human contact with his best mates.  
  
"Yeah, I'l come around more often from now on."  
  
They got their coffees. It was nice.  
  
\------------  
  
The next day he thought to himself about keeping his promise. It would complicate things a bit, but it would complicate things more if they decided there was something wrong with Roger for isolating himself and acting strangely.  
  
He called Freddie, John, and Brian and asked them if they wanted to go to the bar later. Nothing new or special, but it had been a while.  
  
They said yes.  
  
That evening at 6, he drove out to the bar. It was called The Morning Rooster which Roger didn't quite understand for a cheap beer-and-chips place, but.  
  
The place looked a bit run down, floor and walls slightly grimy. There was televisions in a few corners for people to watch sports. There were surprisingly few people in the place.  
  
Roger was earlier than the others so he decided to order a small plate of chips. When he got it, he put some ketchup down and immediately scooped almost all of it up with a single chip, dwarfed by the pile of red sauce on top. He looked both ways and threw all the chips away before covering it with two napkins.  
  
Then he got the attention of the server and ordered a glass of water.  
  
Brian, John, and Freddie showed up about five minutes after that. Brian and Freddie sat across from him while John sat next to him. Though he loved John, he was slightly bothered by the fact that there was less than a foot of space between them. He kept his silence on the matter.  
  
"How've you been?" He started with, which garnered an echo of fineness from the three of them. They repeated his question back to him. It was funny because something about the activity, God knew what, made them sound almost like monkets and then he was looking at them and comparing them to proboscis monkeys and giggling.  
  
It sounded stupid even to him, so when they asked what he was laughing at, he just apologized.  
  
The waiter came to their little table and asked what kind of drinks they wanted.  
  
Freddie ordered beer for all four of them which made Roger a little uncomfortable. He was pretty sure beer had a lot of sugar and calories and whatnot in it and he really didn't want to deal with that.  
  
"Actually, can I..." but he couldn't ask for plain, safe water because that was incredibly odd when Roger was the one who dragged them out to a bar in the first place. He was to act normal.  
  
He was to act normal.  
  
"Actually, nevermind."  
  
He felt regret roll in his gut but he decided to just let it go for once and have a nice time with people who he'd felt distance from for quite some time. He would drink beer, get lightly drunk, fuck around with the three of them for most of the night, and go to bed with the warmth of companionship in his skin. He would not obsess.  
  
He would not obsess.  
  
They got their drrinks in a matter of minutes. Roger opened his and took one look around their table, then drank it all within about 3 minutes. After that, he did something previously unthinkable. He called for a waiter and ordered more food.

It was made even more stupid by the fact that he had a ready-made excuse in the form of his plate with its crumbs and ketchup stain, but he was  _hungry._

Fries and portion of barbeque. It wasn't a feast for anyone normal, but he wasn't, and this wasn't for him. He felt no apprehension, only a buzzing warmth as he destroyed it all. Roger imagined he might look like a vulture choking down a carcass as fast as possible with no care towards any bones or pointy bits that might get in his way.  
  
It felt really good going down his throat, though within the first few bites he felt uncomfortably full. If he weren't tipsy it would probably hurt more.  
  
He heard Brian ask him a question but it was kind of echo-y and just fuzzy enough to be undiscernable.  
  
"What?"  
  
"I asked if you were alright," Brian said.  
  
"Oh. Well, yeah, I am, why?"  
  
"You look a little sick."  
  
Did he? Now that Brian put it into words, he sort of felt a little sick too. His plate was clean and his stomach felt like it protruded several inches, though that was probably just his mind playing tricks on him.  
  
He looked down. Honestly, Roger did look a little bigger.  
  
"Have you heard the new music by-" Freddie started, but he interrupted him.  
  
"Sorry, I've gotta run to the loo. Be back in a minute," Roger said.  
  
He walked in the direction of the washrooms, picking up speed as he went. If he left it for too long...  
  
He wouldn't leave it.  
  
Roger finally made it, the bathroom door being pushed open from the inside by someone leaving. It felt like fate. Someone was making space for him in that second home, welcoming Roger inside.  
  
He looked at the three ugly stalls available to him. One, though, was full.  
  
Roger would not vomit where someone could hear him. It was too... vulnerable, maybe. That was when he was at his worst, his unattractiveness coming from the soul and manifesting as weird, gross behavior of desperation and weakness.  
  
Soon enough the stranger flushed and so Roger entered the stall to the first right of the door to avoid being seen, for no particular reason. He stood and wanted very much to tap his foot on the uniform stone patterns under him as he waited...  
  
The stranger was washing their hands.  
  
waited...  
  
The stranger was drying their hands.  
  
waited...  
  
And they pushed on the door and left. No one else entered. The restroom called nobody else in just yet, siren though she was.  
  
Finally, like peace after years of war, he was free to place his hands reverently on the plastic seat, feeling the ache of bending at a less-than-ninety-degree angle. He smelled the scent of the toilet water. It made him want to vomit, and he almost smiled at that.  
  
He took one hand off and put it up to his mouth, breathing in once before he opened wide and went in.  
  
"Roger?" echoed around him.  
  
His fingers were already dancing past his uvula and these days it didn't take much. Gravity pulled all he ate up and out of his mouth like a fountain. The seasoning of the fries mixed with the barbeque sauce didn't go up well, he thought, even as panic surged. He had to stop.  
  
He stood up and wiped his hand on some toilet paper, then cleaned his mouth. He heard another call of his name. It was John.  
  
He silently cleared his throat a little before answering. "Yeah?"  
  
"It's been like fifteen minutes. Are you okay? D'ya need to go home?"  
  
"I-" and he was going to say no, that he wanted to stay out with them and was just fine, but that wasn't true. He wanted to go back to safety, hide under some covers, and maybe even cry a bit. He knew for a fact it wasn't all gone, and whether he stayed or went, he couldn't get rid of it. Either the surveillance of his friends or the car ride to his current bed would prevent it.  
  
"I think I wanna go home," he said.  
  
"Oh."  
  
Roger flushed the toilet before opening the door.  
  
"I'll call a cab. I don' wanna make one of you drive me just 'cause I'm a little sick. But... yeah, I'm gonna go." Roger decided it at the same time it came out of his mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed, I'd love to hear your thoughts. I promise that Roger will have his happy ending soon. I don't see this being too long.
> 
> I'm gonna try to make next chapter more substantial in both wordage and plot though.


	3. A Warning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roger has an adventure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)
> 
> shorter chapter sorry but the time in between is less so i think it might equal out

The ride home was unpleasant. He called for a cab and told the man where to drive and then sat in silence.  
  
He stared out the window but every hill couldn't distract him from the feeling of fullness and he couldn't bring himself to look down and just check because he knew it wasn't really ballooning like he imagined... but what if it was?  
  
And it was too late to throw it up. It'd been probably twenty minutes since the interruption and it felt like none of it was gone.  
  
When he got home, Roger would just crawl into bed and hide for a few days. Maybe longer--never come out, become a non-eating recluse who never talks to his friends except to lie to them about getting out and seeing them more often.  
  
He got home and decided that no, he should probably take a shower before collapsing.  
  
Roger shuffled into his bathroom, took one glance at the mirror and walked back to the doorway. He turned the light off and sighed.  
  
Not today.  
  
He took the shower and fell asleep in the tub.  
  
\----  
  
Roger woke up somewhere entirely new. It looked like a large forest, not anything like the warm and strangely comfortable tub he was just in.  
  
On second thought, he wasn't sure if "forest" worked here, though. It had a wealth of trees, yes, but they were all dead, and most of them were a sickly grey or bone-white. And, on second glance, he thought he saw what might be a lot of little squirrels nestled at the bases of the trees, but they were all dead and rotting and covered in acorns.  
  
_How do I find my way out of here?_  
  
**"What are you doing here?"** an unfamiliar voice boomed behind him.  
  
"Fuck if I know!" he spluttered, turning to look at the man. Only... It was less of a man and more of an actual giant terrifying skeleton.  
  
**"This is my domain, little copycat. Humans are not welcome."** It looked just like a regular human skeleton except it was about two and a half meters long, maybe more.  
  
"I didn't mean to come here! I don't even know where I am," Roger shouted. He looked around, but there was no one but him and the thing in a circle of tree corpses.  
  
**"Then leave, child. I will kill you if you linger. Living things are not meant to find their way into my woods."**  
  
Roger didn't need to be told he should get out. The whole place freaked him out.  
  
He didn't reply, just turned and walked off into the trees.  
  
He had no way of knowing where he was going but there seemed to be a slightly-worn path in front of him, so he followed that. His eyes didn't stray from that path in front of him lest he accidentally see more decomposing animals to either side.  
  
With his walking came the unsettling feeling of missing something, but he didn't doubt the nightmare creature's promise of literally killing him if he stayed in the woods.  
  
The dirt below him didn't change from its grey-brown color, but it started feeling softer, a bit like mud. His shoes sunk in about a centimeter but didn't go any deeper, and it didn't leave residue on the shoes like mud should.  
  
Finally Roger looked to either side of himself only to see that he was out of the forest. Instead, he was surrounded at all sides by gentle swells of land, peaceful creeks flowing cutting through here and there, and several houses at the tops of the mounds.  
  
The grass was strangely yellow for such an otherwise beautiful sight. The ground didn't stop giving under his weight every step, but it wasn't impossible to walk on.  
  
He decided to climb up one of the hills and knock on a door. Maybe one of them could tell him how to get out of here.  
  
He stood at the porch of the little cottage-style home and knocked twice. When he did so, he noticed that the door felt weirdly soft, just like the ground had been. Maybe a little rubbery.  
  
Roger poked a finger into the window and felt it dip in like cling film, but before he could explore further, the owner of the house was opening the inside door.  
  
From what he could see, it was a normal man, but he was pink and rather round around the middle--and just about everywhere else.  
  
He opened the outside door too and his chubby mouth stretched into a smile, showing off yellowing teeth and a huge wet tongue.  
  
"Come in!" and his clammy hand pulled at Roger's delicate wrist, pulling him inside the doorway before he could protest.  
  
The first thing he saw was a large round table with a feast proudly displayed. There was turkey and cake and wine and mashed potatoes and a small saucer of butter and pancakes and chips and plenty more well-prepared and appealing food.  
  
"Please, sit down. I made a little too much today."  
  
"I-I've really gotta go," Roger stuttered, already pulling away and walking out the door. "I'm sorry, I forgot something. I need to leave."  
  
He walked down the steps to the porch, bare feet absorbing the heat of the wooden steps.  
  
"But you're gonna die!" the man told him, clearly very concerned for Roger's wellbeing. Roger was already tearing down the hillside though, eager to get away. He felt himself sink down into the ground, and he realized it wasn't dying grass but yellowy fat that made up the landscape. It was slippery, and he fell down and down and down, surely much further than the hill was high, until the feeling of falling took him over and he shook awake.  
  
Fuck!  
  
Roger breathed hard. It was only a dream.  
  
He turned over and looked at his alarm clock. 4:17 a.m. Well, there was no point in going back to sleep now.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure if this is still super relatable to all y'all, but I was thinking that I wanted to make this more interesting for my dearest readers. I'm gonna work more on the relationship stuff next chapter, but for now we have this. 
> 
> Basically the inspiration for this was that I have really weird fuckin' dreams, and also I love when people do that Alice-in-Wonderland thing. Sorry if you didn't like the change from the usual.


	4. Quiet Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roger is sick and tired of this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some nebulous amount of time has passed from chapter three to this one.

Roger sat in his kitchen and drank green tea. It had no milk, but a truly monstrous amount of sugar. Some of it wasn't even dissolved.

  
He was getting tired of this thing. There were people in the world who didn't have to try to be beautiful (there were people who didn't care that they weren't and became, paradoxically, their own brand of lovely. Roger thought he might admire those people more). Roger wasn't one of them, he'd learned. It would be smarter now to cut his losses and focus on his actual talents than trying and failing to be thin and ethereal like the fairy he'd always been called in high school.

  
It was never about a new lifestyle, really. He wouldn't ever place these expectations on other people, it was only for him. The thought of Brian, for example, doing this made him want to cry. Er, more than usual, anyway.

  
He didn't want to do this. He looked down at his tea. Sugar was bad.

  
He put it up to his mouth, intending to chug it all. He didn't care. Roger could just stop being a fucking idiot and he'd have his life back.

  
It swirled in his mouth, little grains of sugar dissolving on his tongue like snowflakes. He was going to swallow.

  
It-- He started to swallow, or maybe he just imagined doing it really hard, but it didn't happen. Now that all this liquid was stuck in the back of his mouth and stretching his throat it kind of hurt--

  
He spit it out into the sink. Fuck. 

 

  
He definitely had an issue, he decided. The thing now was how to fix it.

  
He thought that even though he might not always like himself, he was pretty sure he didn't want to die. At the very least, Roger didn't want to die by vomiting himself to a stroke in the bathroom and having his friends find him, or collapsing one day onstage under the burning lights and never waking up. Roger though he probably didn't want to die by organ failure induced by malnutrition.

  
And yet he couldn't bring himself to eat.

  
It was funny, he could binge all day on thousands of calories (yes, thousands) when he desperately did not want to, but he couldn't eat now. Not even small things. He was subsisting on water, diet soda, fruit juice. Anything that promised to give him caffeine or vitamins that he knew he was probably in the negatives for.

  
He knew one thing: he could not, under any circumstances, get himself into the hospital, or into a mental institution, and he'd prefer to avoid a therapist. That would be... too much. Roger had a life, and he was trying very, very to salvage it.

  
What was there left? Nothing but to talk to someone. He was thinking maybe Freddie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry I took so long. it's hard for me to get into this headspace, and doing so isn't really pleasant. I'm doing better, you know? so if you notice a huge tone shift, that's why. I'm trying to wrap this up in a satisfying way without cutting any corners.
> 
> tell me what you thought?

**Author's Note:**

> please eat ily you're pretty and deserve happiness and health  
> okay goodnight children


End file.
